Thursday, 29 December 2011

Woman fence pet elephant

Woman jumps fence, pets elephant, A woman at this famous zoo reportedly jumped over a fence to pet an elephant.Onlookers screamed, and zoo officials slowly talked her out of the enclosure.

On Killing Elephants, and violent threats FROM VegansI hadn't kept up with the outrage over Go Daddy CEO Bob Parsons killing an elephant. I like elephants very much, they are large, yet gentle, live as families, and are herbivores. They are attractive, they are clever, they are nice. I've seen elephants before, in travelling circuses. The most recent I saw was dubbed "Jumbo", I named her "Ms Elephant":

Mars is surprisingly socially responsible. The company sent a delegate to present about their program which employs indigenous people to pick the cocoa beans they use to make their chocolate. The local women use bark from the sustainably grown cocoa trees to make paper, which you can purchase here. Additionally, the company's Sustainable Solutions department has found a way to make all of their chocolate without the palm oil that is so destructive to the rainforest, and they're working on ways to get palm oil out of all their other products too. So everyone, eat Snickers, M&M's, Milkyways and Dove chocolates with a clear conscience!

​The L.A. Zoo just spent $42 million on a snazzy new sanctuary to contain its elephants -- but it seems the sanctuary's fencing might not be enough to contain excited onlookers from crossing in the opposite direction.Yesterday, an unidentified woman who was reportedly off her meds "went in to kind of check the elephants out," Branden Adams, a nice-mannered kid who witnessed the break-in, tells KTLA. "She comes out and she says, 'I'm going to go pet the elephants now.' And she goes and she started touching the elephants and seeing what they were doing.

Adams' cellphone video shows the elephant-ite hopping the cord, ambling around the desert habitat for a spell -- then finally getting her pet on, albeit cautiously. KTLA reports that the particular beasts subjected to her strange love -- for five full minutes! -- were Jewel and Tina, the zoo's newest elephants. (They probably would have preferred a pet from Billy, the third elephant on the block. More on that sexual tension, here.)

We've called the zoo's spokeswoman for comment. But according to the Times, "officials... felt the barriers protecting the recently expanded elephant exhibit were adequate to safeguard the animals and visitors."

After being urged out by staffers, the woman was detained by police at the scene. They opted to send her to the hospital, however, when they noticed something wasn't quite right, mentally.

At least she got in her final hoorah, right? And now gets to be the unnamed hero of whichever wide-eyed kids were lucky enough to be at the L.A. Zoo yesterday.

Tai, an Indian female elephant stands in the middle of a couple's home in a performance art piece by English artist Banksy, Sept. 15, 2006, in a downtown Los Angeles warehouse. The Banksy exhibition, called Barely Legal, is billed as a "three day vandalized warehouse extravaganza" on Hunter St. in Los Angeles. It features a live elephant which has been painted in a floral wallpaper pattern.

The Los Angeles Zoo said it had no plans to increase security at the elephant exhibit a day after a determined visitor climbed over multiple barriers and petted the pachyderms.

The enclosure that separates the elephants from visitors is surrounded by multiple obstacles throughout the 6-acre space, including fences, ditches, a pool and shrubbery, said Jason Jacobs, a spokesman for the zoo.

That was apparently not enough to stop one woman from climbing into the elephant pen Tuesday.

The woman, whose name was not released, came face to face with the elephants after she scaled the public barrier, walked through tall bushes and climbed another fence.

"It was an isolated incident of extraordinary circumstances," Jacobs said. "This woman made a conscious decision to leave the zoo pathway."

The incident was captured on video by another visitor at the zoo.

One witness said she was inside for about five minutes.

"She went in to kind of check the elephants out," Branden Adams told KTLA News. "She comes out and she says, 'I'm going to go pet the elephants now.' And she goes and she started touching the elephants and seeing what they were doing."

The woman later admitted that she suffered a mental illness and had not taken her medication that day, the station reported. She was taken to an area hospital to receive treatment.Three elephants live in the newly renovated exhibit, but only two females were roaming the space when the woman entered the pen. Jacobs said there were at least two barriers between visitors and the elephants at all times to protect the animals and guests.

"Most visitors follow the rules," he said of the zoo's 1.5 million annual guests. "We have no plans to alter the exhibit because of the actions of one person."